Share your memories here - Please!

OK - this is a spin-off of the cheap seeds thread on the discussions side.

I want your memories. My kids and I love to hear stories from different people about the ways they used to play (and work) as kids, and they love to re-create them.

i find that we get different ideas from people in different regions - my mother, who has spent her entire life in cities is a great source of things like jump rope rhymes, snapping your chewing gum, and games involving stoops and "pinkies" (spalding balls)

One lady who has lived in the country her whole life recently shared that she and her sister used to lay on the floor at night and listen to the radio shows and drip candle wax in different colors on to waxed paper, let them cool, and then use a needle and thread to string them into jewelry. I've located radio shows free on the internet, and have to run to the dollar store for candles. My girls are very dissappointed at how long it is taking me to pull this one together, lol.

My friends and I used to love to play school - there was something so *official* about being allowed to use the chalk - *just like the teacher*. Even though it's mostly dry erase markers in school now, I have made sure my kids have a small chalkboard and chalk, lol.

Please add yours, and I'll add more as I remember them. I'll probably have to wait until the kids wake up to ask them, lol.

I grew up in rural SD in a large family and played lots of board games, monopoly and Rummy Royale two of our favorites.
Sledding down our tiny hills was a great winter time activity; walking over snowbanks to see how far one could go before falling through; listening to my Mom telling stories of when she was growing up;

Summers: made necklaces from poppy blossoms; picked wild milkseed pods to feel the silk and blow the seeds in the air; walked down dusty roads barefoot dragging our feet through the thick cool dust; summer days spent looking at clouds searching for images; riding bikes everywhere (though we had to take turns, not enough bikes for each); wagon rides; playing kick the can and hide and seek in the coolness of the evenings; climbing trees; playing "house" in our wooded play area; playing "horse" where we ran as fast as we could and jumped anything jumpable; wading in the creek searching for tadpoles; jumping into a soft pile of hay; making clothes for our paper dolls; "styling" one another's hair; hosting the first pizza party and making and introducing this new food to our friends;

Games: tag, baseball, Captain May I, Red Rover, foot races;
the game where one throws the ball over a small building
and if the ball is caught runs around to capture the
other team, if they haven't successfully run to the
other side of the building, (can't remember the name);

Work: on a farm there was always work, cleaning out animal pens, bringing in the cows from the pasture, feeding and milking cows, feeding the calves; shoveling grain, forking hay, collecting eggs (which I disliked as hated getting pecked by the hens) and the number one hated, boring job, weeding our huge garden. Never thought I'd someday love to garden though I don't have to weed much as I have learned to prevent weeds.

I enjoyed recalling these memories for you, makes me smile at all the good times we had.

We played the same games,laying on the grass at night,looking up at the stars,and trying to find the constellations,
Watching the bats come out and eat insects.
Alleys,after supper,we would bring the garbage out back, to the alley,and burn it, in a big steal drum,every one seemed to do it at the same time,so you had all these drums,burning out back, To this day, I love it when i find a neighborhood with an alley, I will drive down it, just because.

Playing A Tisk-It-A Task-It.Tiddly winks.Old maid.

Making doll cradles out of oatmeal boxes.
Cakes***out of cookie tins, painted,just so,yummy!
Crocheting with a wooden spool of thread,with 5 nails hammered into it,you would wind the thread around just so,and pull the thread over the nail,and you could crochet a very long,tub.Pretty cool, you could roll them,and make rugs,or place mats.
Making doll clothes out of old dresses,you saved every thing back then,took buttons off worn out clothing,zippers also.I still have a jar of old buttons.
Dish towels out of flour bags yes, we did this as recent as 1968.ha ha,Does that sound old,?Not to me.

I will think of this tonight in bed,Fun memories.
You might want to invite those on the other side that you started this,I just found you by accident.
cAROL

European city kid here. We really didn't get to play outside except on weekends and summer when we went to the little old house we rented in the country. So we played shopping, school, going to work in the office(isn't that a hoot?) and a lot of board games.
In the summer, we got to play outdoors, it was very safe. So we'd go out in the country to pick blackberries, pretend we were the Famous Five from the Enid Blyton books, ride our bikes, hide treasures, and one of our favorites, pop snapdragon seeds with a magnifying lens.

I remember playing out side when dark all our nabors were kind we could play hide and seek behind everyones house but quietly, we played kick ball in the street, and jacks I love to sit in door way to house playiny jacks and hulla hoop,. I loved going to grandma to do dishes so I could walk to the corner to spend a few cents on pretzel rods for a penny, and zagnut bars from the Zepher gas station and you could by alot of candy for a quarter/ My mom had a pink cottage style home with rose trellis all over full of roses. and inside she had a house full of craft sea shells and made necklaces up a wooden doll stick that the thred went around it to make a tube like necklace. and made pillow cases embroded , She had a huge wood radio we would listen to fun programs and a new tv for the first time I remember the news guy sqeesing the state to get your attention on the news report sunny elliot I believe his name was. MY grand ma made me pick currents and I had to share them with her I learned I couldnt eat them all myself. Grandma had a coffee can as well as grandpa where they descreatly spit there tobacoo. . and a big long haired cat named fluffy who would never let me pet her. she made croq. covers for chair arms and for foot stools made with foam and cover and wooden legs. I loved my grandma and miss her so, and I have currents now in my yard. and the same sea shell on my tables to let my grand son touch and feel and tell storys like the sand dollar full of birds in side.

For radio programs, the archives of Old Time Radio on Wisconsin Public Radio is wonderful. (I listen every week, and the shows are archived for a year.) The link is posted below.

We made friendship bracelets and barrettes with embroidery thread and thin ribbon and hair barrettes--late 70s and early 80s. We also did finger weaving with yarn.

My grandma taught me to embroider and my mom and grandma both tried to show me how to sew. I couldn't seem to pick it up, so I sort of taught myself. I made lots of quilts and blankets for my dolls out of scrap material. My daughters have found these, and love them. They look like folk art and there isn't a straight side of any of the quilts, but they are a patchwork!

We also loved to paint the house and sidewalk. My mom gave us bowls or buckets with paint brushes. We filled the containers with water from the hose and went to town. We usually ended up getting ourselves wet, too. We made tents in the backyard in the summer and would read and draw during the daytime. We had a balcony and we would sleep out there in the summer some nights.

Hopscotch and Chinese jump rope in addition to all the other games mentioned. We also would hit a tennis ball against the garage in the alley for HOURS. HORSE, around-the-world, and 21 were also basketball games we would play. We also played kickball and dodgeball and catch. I was the only girl on the block until 6th grade, so my playmates were boys. We also had lots of parks in Minneapolis, so we could ride our bikes there and go swimming at the lake with a parent. Lots of sledding and ice skating and fort making in the winter.

Playing outside until the crickets started to sing and it got dark. Climbing the tree outside my bedroom window and reading a book up there, all afternoon. Playing jacks (I was pretty good too!). Getting pushed really high in the swings - felt like I was flying.

Sitting on the gallery (porch) in the evenings with my grandmother, talking and eating peppermints and cracked ice.

I grew up (mostly) on an island; "work" was the usual - washing dishes, cleaning my room, helping to hang the sheets on the line, and helping to fold them when they were dry. I walked to town each day after school - about a three mile walk, both ways - to make sure my great-grandmother was set for the evening. I didn't really HAVE to do that - my grandfather checked her each night - but I liked to listen to her tell stories about when she was young and when my grandfather was young, how the island used to be. I was an only child for my first eight years, and I thoroughly enjoyed all the "old" people in my life.

Playing "Bogeyman" at night, so thrilling. One person was "it" and hid somewhere around the back or sides of the house.. Everyone else would start from the front porch (home base) and run around the house. The "it" person would jump out from hiding and tag whoever they could, who would become the next "it". The goal was to get back to the front porch without being tagged. If a younger kid was "it", though, usually a bigger kid would let him/herself be tagged so the younger kid would not be "it" forever. The game worked best at night with no lights around, this allowed the it person to hide better and scare the bejinkies out of the rest of us when "it" jumped out at us.

I also remember bats swooping in the dusk, and fireflies. With the dry summers we had been having up till last year, I had not seen many fireflies. But they were back with a vengence this past summer. One evening I took a walk at just the right time at dusk, and there was a whole cornfield full of fireflies, like the stars had come down to dance with each other.

Wow this is fun! So many memories brought back. Chinese jumprope, making hideouts in the woods. We would spend hours trying to make a bridge across the creek that would hold us. Catching crawdads with coathangers. Another fun memory was standing under a streetlight at night and throwing golfballs as high as we could. Bats would swoop at the balls. My brother and I would sell anything and everything to the neighbors. We would capture ants and put them in baby food jars with dirt in the bottom. It amazes me now how many people bought those for a quarter!

My two all-time favorite summer memories. Having a lemonade stand, and setting up lawn chairs in the middle of the street during a thunderstorm, holding our umbrellas and counting the seconds between the lightning and the thunder. I miss the old days where kids could be kids, unlike today's world where I won't let my kids outside by themselves without being supervised!